I am doing something seriously wrong. I'm leveling this toon as a tank, but I'm going through the instances as DPS first to see what the tanks are doing before I try it. I am always last in DPS while ret. When I tank the same instance I am either 1st or 2nd in DPS. I'm level 62 right now and I've linked my armory. I must have the rotation wrong or something. My main is a mage so Melee is new to me and doing low DPS is really new to me.
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Quel%27dorei&cn=Lightemup
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Need help with Ret DPSFollow
I'm not a huge ret DPSer, but a few things...
Your gear is seemingly a mix of tanking (high stamina) and DPS. Try and replace outdated and stamina-heavy pieces. Also, agility isn't that valuable for ret pallies besides giving some crit. I believe pure strength will get you far. Also, some hit is nice and expertise when you can get it (mostly at 70+). Talents are fine, but change your glyphs; no reason to have Glyph of Righteousness. SoC for trash groups and Corruption/vengeance for bosses once you get it. Try and get a trinket with an activated proc; there are plenty in Outland. Use that on bosses. Stand behind enemies as much as possible. Abilities are first-come first-serve; when you have multiple off cooldown, use the following priorities:
1.Judgement - Hardest hitter, returns mana, can't go wrong with this as your top priority.
2.CS - Because of the short CD and ability to proc a seal, you want to keep this on cooldown as much as possible.
3.DS - DS only pulls ahead of CS with 2pcT10 equipped, as its' effective cooldown drops to 6 seconds, and it hits much harder than CS does.
4.HoW - This skill only comes into play when a mob is at 20%; it then becomes high priority due to it's extremely high crit rate and fairly short CD.
5.Consecration - Consecration moves near the top of the pile only against multiple (4+) adds.
6.Exorcism - It hits hard, but because of it's somewhat long cooldown (15s) and reliance on spellhit, it isn't great dps. Do not use this on a pull because it will not be instant cast, and will delay entering melee combat.
7.Holy Wrath - Only effective against multiple (6+) demons/undead, you are better off using your free GCD casting DP or a SS on someone. This is as close to a mana dump skill as we have.
Source: http://elitistjerks.com/f76/t68951-retribution_updated_3_3_a/#ixzz0oizrzs2Y
Your gear is seemingly a mix of tanking (high stamina) and DPS. Try and replace outdated and stamina-heavy pieces. Also, agility isn't that valuable for ret pallies besides giving some crit. I believe pure strength will get you far. Also, some hit is nice and expertise when you can get it (mostly at 70+). Talents are fine, but change your glyphs; no reason to have Glyph of Righteousness. SoC for trash groups and Corruption/vengeance for bosses once you get it. Try and get a trinket with an activated proc; there are plenty in Outland. Use that on bosses. Stand behind enemies as much as possible. Abilities are first-come first-serve; when you have multiple off cooldown, use the following priorities:
1.Judgement - Hardest hitter, returns mana, can't go wrong with this as your top priority.
2.CS - Because of the short CD and ability to proc a seal, you want to keep this on cooldown as much as possible.
3.DS - DS only pulls ahead of CS with 2pcT10 equipped, as its' effective cooldown drops to 6 seconds, and it hits much harder than CS does.
4.HoW - This skill only comes into play when a mob is at 20%; it then becomes high priority due to it's extremely high crit rate and fairly short CD.
5.Consecration - Consecration moves near the top of the pile only against multiple (4+) adds.
6.Exorcism - It hits hard, but because of it's somewhat long cooldown (15s) and reliance on spellhit, it isn't great dps. Do not use this on a pull because it will not be instant cast, and will delay entering melee combat.
7.Holy Wrath - Only effective against multiple (6+) demons/undead, you are better off using your free GCD casting DP or a SS on someone. This is as close to a mana dump skill as we have.
Source: http://elitistjerks.com/f76/t68951-retribution_updated_3_3_a/#ixzz0oizrzs2Y
Also note that you should NOT use Exorcism unless you have a proc from The Art of War, which makes it Instant. Otherwise it has a cast time, during which you aren't swinging your weapon, AND it restarts your swing timers, so even though the cast is 1.5 seconds, you can potentially lose far more time swinging (if you have a 3.6 weapon, and hit Exo .2 seconds after a swing, that is 3.4+1.5= 4.9 seconds not swinging your weapons.
IDrownFish wrote:
Anyways, you all are horrible, @#%^ed up people
lolgaxe wrote:
Never underestimate the healing power of a massive dong.
To add to what others have said:
- Since you should really be having no threat problems in your main spec, there's not as much gear crossover as there used to be. With the exception of maybe one Hit/STR ring, you'll probably need to pick up a full dedicated Ret set along the way to get most use out of the spec. Bag space is cheap.
- Repeated for emphasis: don't heal or exorcise unless you have an Art of War proc. Every ability you ever use should be instant. Set up your proc-watching addon with a Ret profile.
- Since all your abilities are instant, and you're mostly GCD-locked anyway, haste isn't all that useful, joining Agi and to some extent raw AP in that bin (i.e. hunter gear mostly sucks if it isn't higher ilvl). You won't go much wrong if you gear for pure STR. In fact, don't worry about Hit much at all - by the time its value gets high enough tht you must be hitcapped, the gear you get will all have enough that you won't be able to avoid it.
- Maybe the biggest thing... It's better to use the wrong ability than to use no ability at all. Every time that a new GCD comes up, do /something/ even if it's not the "right" thing. Mind you, you should know your priority system and practice it, but in a real fight, perfect is the enemy of good.
- Since you should really be having no threat problems in your main spec, there's not as much gear crossover as there used to be. With the exception of maybe one Hit/STR ring, you'll probably need to pick up a full dedicated Ret set along the way to get most use out of the spec. Bag space is cheap.
- Repeated for emphasis: don't heal or exorcise unless you have an Art of War proc. Every ability you ever use should be instant. Set up your proc-watching addon with a Ret profile.
- Since all your abilities are instant, and you're mostly GCD-locked anyway, haste isn't all that useful, joining Agi and to some extent raw AP in that bin (i.e. hunter gear mostly sucks if it isn't higher ilvl). You won't go much wrong if you gear for pure STR. In fact, don't worry about Hit much at all - by the time its value gets high enough tht you must be hitcapped, the gear you get will all have enough that you won't be able to avoid it.
- Maybe the biggest thing... It's better to use the wrong ability than to use no ability at all. Every time that a new GCD comes up, do /something/ even if it's not the "right" thing. Mind you, you should know your priority system and practice it, but in a real fight, perfect is the enemy of good.
Are you judging your dps on your overall dps for the instance? If you are, it might simply be that other classes are AoEing more than you. What's really important is your dps on boss fights, so judge by that.
If you DO want high overall dps, make sure you're using seal of command. As soon as tank has aggro, get divine storm on CD, consecration, and then judge for mana, then prioritize judgment when it's up, then divine storm, then consecration. Most packs won't live through a rotation or two, but everyone AoEs down all instances now because of how classes work in WotLK. If you're not hitting a few mobs at once, it literally halfs or worse your dps output.
I've been doing a death knight in the 60's and I'm nearly always top dps even though my gear is **** (on a new server, no heairloom gear nor money to twink), because I prioritize the AoE abilities like no other. :P Except on bosses of course. But if you were to just measure on bosses, I'd probably rarely be first. killing machine proc+howling blast = kaboom.
Like I said though, all that really is moot if you can't put out decent dps on bosses.
EDIT: on yeah, also if you do buy some gear, plate with strength on it is very expensive. Chain with strength on it is very cheap. Leather with strength even cheaper, and in BC levels, there's plenty of it. You're a dps, not a tank, don't be afraid to wear lower armor value gear. Lastly, gem slots trump all else because BC gear wasn't made with WotLK gems in mind. Even blue gems in a gem slot are way overpowered. To this day, I don't understand why they didn't put level limits on gems, but they didn't, so exploit it.
EDIT TO MY EDIT: By blue gems, I mean rare gems instead of epic gems. I don't mean +Stamina gems.
Edited, Jun 6th 2010 2:42pm by digitalcraft
If you DO want high overall dps, make sure you're using seal of command. As soon as tank has aggro, get divine storm on CD, consecration, and then judge for mana, then prioritize judgment when it's up, then divine storm, then consecration. Most packs won't live through a rotation or two, but everyone AoEs down all instances now because of how classes work in WotLK. If you're not hitting a few mobs at once, it literally halfs or worse your dps output.
I've been doing a death knight in the 60's and I'm nearly always top dps even though my gear is **** (on a new server, no heairloom gear nor money to twink), because I prioritize the AoE abilities like no other. :P Except on bosses of course. But if you were to just measure on bosses, I'd probably rarely be first. killing machine proc+howling blast = kaboom.
Like I said though, all that really is moot if you can't put out decent dps on bosses.
EDIT: on yeah, also if you do buy some gear, plate with strength on it is very expensive. Chain with strength on it is very cheap. Leather with strength even cheaper, and in BC levels, there's plenty of it. You're a dps, not a tank, don't be afraid to wear lower armor value gear. Lastly, gem slots trump all else because BC gear wasn't made with WotLK gems in mind. Even blue gems in a gem slot are way overpowered. To this day, I don't understand why they didn't put level limits on gems, but they didn't, so exploit it.
EDIT TO MY EDIT: By blue gems, I mean rare gems instead of epic gems. I don't mean +Stamina gems.
Edited, Jun 6th 2010 2:42pm by digitalcraft
idiggory wrote:
AND it restarts your swing timers, so even though the cast is 1.5 seconds, you can potentially lose far more time swinging (if you have a 3.6 weapon, and hit Exo .2 seconds after a swing, that is 3.4+1.5= 4.9 seconds not swinging your weapons.
False.
There isn't a skill in the game that resets your swing timer anymore. They all pause it.
Though ironically, your second statement is correct; if you start casting .2 seconds after a swing, your next swing will be 4.9 seconds off. Whereas if they reset your swing timer, it would be 5.1.
I know I'm late to the party here, but what helped me get the rotation down and upped my dps was an addon called ret-fcfs (or something like that). This should be the link to it.
Best of luck.
Best of luck.
3 posts
Foolow your instincts is the best way for Ret dps. Thats my sercret for n1 dps
The addon is designed to help those that are new to FCFS raiding rotations. Anyone that has raided as Ret for a tier at 80 should be able to perform well without it. Outside of this just make sure you stack the right stats, use the right seals at the right time and your dps should be fine.
Edit: All moot. OP is now Prot =D
Edited, Jul 31st 2010 4:28pm by arthoriuss
Edit: All moot. OP is now Prot =D
Edited, Jul 31st 2010 4:28pm by arthoriuss
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